Monday, August 21, 2006

Notes to Self

I imagine it's the same way with most people who write a lot, but over the past year or so, I've taken to writing notes to myself almost constantly.

Seriously, the wall in front of my desk at the Shop is covered with Post-Its, covering everything from the name of a professor whose Shakespeare lectures I really enjoyed back in high school to, as you might expect, half-formed ISB ideas. You know, lists of things like Marvel Comics where the cover advertises characters "going wild" or The Worst Cover Blurbs I have ever seen.

Incidentally, that last one's only got two entries so far: the so-bad-it's-almost-awesome Thor #469, and the nigh-unforgiveable Robin #146.

Clearly, most of my notes are pretty self-explanatory. But every now and then, I'll come across one that I've completely forgotten about, like last week when I found a copy of Firestorm #56, from a few months ago when I did my two-part BriefHistory of the character. There was a post-it stuck to the bag with the simple note: Page 4, Panel 5.

When I was interning at Marvel in the '90s, I pitched some intentionally bad cover blurbs to try to secure my legacy.

One of my favorites was X-Men Unlimited #10, which featured the Beast fighting a doppelganger of himself. My page of pitches for the cover copy included "Two Beasts or Not Two Beasts?" and "Meet the Real McCoy", the latter of which ended up getting used.

My rejected title resurfaced on the cover of X-Factor #126 after I left Marvel, so apparently my editor Kelly thought it was funny after all. To my knowledge he never used "Beast-iality" though... I wonder why not?

the basics

"Chris works at a comic book shop so he reviews all the latest releases, but the real awesomeness lies in his ability to find obscure or forgotten comic books and write hilariously sarcastic reviews that make fun of them. They deserve it!"--Blair Butler on G4 TV's Attack of the Show!